Austin Texas Real Estate Blog

For more than a year West 17^th Street at Lavaca Street has been closed. There’s been construction, which residents have accepted and adapted to. After all, there is nearly always construction in some part of Austin. You can’t avoid it; you can only accept it, even when it does inconvenience several thousand state employees.

Besides, this construction, when it started, was expected to lead to luxury condos and an office building, to be called La Vista on Lavaca. The permit was taken out for it in April 2007. At that time, Jason Redfern, manager of the Right of Way Management Division in Austin’s Watershed Protection and Development Review Department, said, the developers planned to keep the street closed for six months. When six months came and went, they renewed the permit for another six.

April 2008 should have seen another renewal or the completion of the project. It saw neither, and in fact, didn’t even see construction. No one has been there for months and the permits are expired. The city is now probing into the whys and whats of the situation, hoping for a clear answer in this mysterious halt.

The developers claim that their permits are up to date, and that the city is mistaken. But their claims do nothing for the fact that the street is still closed for no apparent reason.

If nothing is going to be done, citizens want it open; so does the city. There should not be, they say, inconvenience for no reason. There should only be inconvenience with the promise of future convenience. And that has disappeared from West 17^th and Lavaca.

A unique planned community in Port O’Connor offers not a site for your home but one for your boat as well, with lots starting in the $100,000 range, and ready access to prime fishing waters. The Caracol coastal master-planned community is located along the Intra-coastal Waterway near Port O’Connor on the Gulf of Mexico. It’s convenient to Houston, Austin, and San Antonio, and yet far enough away to be a relaxing vacation destination. With the Gulf in the backyard, a homeowner in this gated community can park the car in the driveway and the fishing boat at the slip.

Port O’Connor is known world wide as a prime close- and deep-sea fishing location. Just off shore, the waters teem with red snapper, king fish, tarpon and jack fish. Farther out, tuna, dolphin, and blue martin are abundant. Port O’Connor hosts the annual Poco Bueno fishing tournament that attracts sport fishermen from all over the globe.

The planners building Caracol aim to provide a second home for serious fishermen in an upscale gated community. Construction has begun and, when completed, the development will boast 74 home sites in various sizes, ranging from 40 to more than 100 feet of waterfront. Future development plans include a mid-rise condominium with a marina attached. There will also be a community pool and pavilion, which is currently in progress.

Caracol is a joint venture of Trend Development, Inc., and Forestar Real Estate Group. Trend Development is a privately held real estate development company with several large-scale projects in progress throughout Texas. Forestar Real Estate Group operates in two areas: real estate and natural resources. The real estate segment holds interests in ten states. The natural resources part manages oil and gas resources and wood fiber sales from land located in Georgia.

As the cost of oil rises into the record books, businesses, regardless of size, are looking for ways to reduce consumption, and thereby improve the bottom line. Managing energy costs has become a new industry as companies such as LPB Energy Management in Abilene, Texas, come into being and carve out a niche for themselves, advising businesses on lowering energy consumption.

Construction comes into play first and foremost, with details such as which way the building faces, how air and sunlight moves throughout the day, and how best to take advantage of existing topography. In Abilene, costly alternative energy sources are not as in demand as the consumer doesn’t have the benefit of selling extra power back to the utility grid. So, innovations in design and construction are needed to meet the desire for greener, more environmentally friendly buildings.

LPB has provided advice in energy management to the Abilene Independent School District. As a result, more efficient lighting systems – those that incorporate motion detectors – were installed in AISD’s newest building, Craig Middle School. Motion detectors are an easy, low cost way to realize an immediate savings in energy costs. The motion detectors have an added bonus of being a security feature.

The heating and cooling system at Craig is monitored and controlled at the central maintenance office, meaning the system can be powered down at a specified time to save on energy when no-one is occupying or using the building. Eventually, all systems within the AISD buildings will be monitored and controlled in this way.

LPB monitors electricity, water, and natural gas usage for its clients and plays a large part in negotiating the best rates possible from regional providers, and saves its customers the headache of wading through contracts and rate negotiation.